Earth vs GlobeViewer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Earth
Visualize global climate data from NASA satellites, including temperature, CO2, and sea level. Explore 3D Earth models with interactive controls and color-coded maps to understand environmental conditions.
- Global climate data visualization
- Satellite data from Earth Science
- Surface air temperature maps
- CO2 and CO levels
- Ozone and water vapor data
- Gravity and sea level variations
- Interactive 3D Earth model
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NASA's Earth Now is an application that visualizes recent global climate data from Earth Science satellites, including surface air temperature, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and water vapor as well as gravity and sea level variations. Data sets are visually described using "false color" maps. Color-coded legends are provided to indicate relative strength or weakness of an environmental condition. The resulting 3D model of the Earth may be rotated by a single finger stroke, and may also be zoomed in or out by pinching 2 fingers. It was developed by the Earth Science Communications and Visualization Technology Applications and Development Teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with support from NASA Headquarters.
GlobeViewer
Explore Earth with a high-resolution 3D globe and topography maps. View surface, underwater, and topographical details, with real-time event overlays. Access extensive geographical data for offline use.
- Interactive 3D globe
- High-resolution topography maps
- Surface and underwater views
- Real-time event overlays
- Offline data caching
- Extensive place names and geographical features
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GlobeViewer is a high resolution 3D terrestrial globe with topography and surface maps. This app enables a high-quality view of the surface of our blue planet. It is divided into two areas: the rotatable, global view as an interactive globe and a high-resolution 3D map representation of the Earth's topography. - Interactive 3D globe with surface, underwater and topography maps - High-resolution 3D topography map set of the entire Earth's surface - divided into 22,912 individual tiles. You can load 110 different regions onto the interactive globe, which then present the many individual tiles in a meaningful, connected way and reload them automatically. The app initially only contains the textures for the globe in low resolution. All required downloads are automatically loaded from our server. A total of around 105 GB of data is available. The data remains in the cache on your device for offline use, but can be deleted at any time in the main menu. Furthermore, all events recorded by the GDACS, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., are entered on the globe. The 3D topography map is based on the elevation data from the NASA Terra probe, which recorded 83° of the northern and southern hemispheres between 2000 and 2013 - this is the result of the ASTER3-DEM. With version 0.10.0, the map is enriched with around 7.5 million place names from geonames.org. This means that all the towns, mountains, lakes, deserts and many other geographical features entered there are shown on the map. From version 0.12.0, data from OpenStreetMaps (buildings, borders, streets...) is also available on the tiles - but only for the demos and the purchased maps. Use the tutorial in the app to get started quickly or read the manual to find out which functions are included in this app. Since the app is still under development, some functions may still change. We hope you enjoy using GlobeViewer!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Earth at 4.6 against GlobeViewer's 3.4. Earth also leads on review sentiment (74% vs 33%) and in-app purchases (none vs 11). GlobeViewer's advantage is update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 4 months). On price, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. GlobeViewer sells 11 one-off in-app purchases. Earth asks for nothing beyond the download.
Earth holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Earth has 42 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 74% of Earth's written reviews are positive against 33% of GlobeViewer's.
Earth ships an update every 4 months, GlobeViewer every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 5, 2026 and August 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Earth | GlobeViewer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (42 ratings) — better | 3.4 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 73.7% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 42 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 181 MB | 236 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | RAB-Software |
Customer experience
Earth
GlobeViewer
Bugs and requests
Earth
Reported bugs
12 issues- App crashes on startup or during use
- Endless 'Loading model' message
- Crashes on iPhone 4 and older devices
- Pixel doubler requirement on iPad
- No landscape orientation support
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- Doesn't fill iPhone 5 screen properly
- Extremely slow data loading
- Menu navigation issues
- Equator display shows slashes of emptiness
- Zoom sensitivity causes twitchy behavior
- Text readability issues against Earth background
- Geographic data coverage gaps
Requested features
17 requests- Celsius/Kelvin temperature unit options
- Satellite information (height, launch date)
- ISS tracking capability
- Ocean current visualization
- Ice sheet data layers
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- Methane concentration data
- Snapshot/screenshot capability
- Adjustable animation playback speed
- Manual timeline scrolling for animations
- Higher resolution maps for Retina displays
- Landscape orientation support
- iPad version
- Google Earth integration
- More detailed explanations of data
- Selectable date ranges for animations
- Atmospheric CO2 levels (previously removed)
- Surface temperature data (previously removed)
GlobeViewer
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Earth
No in-app purchases
GlobeViewer
- 4K & Polar Regions$0.99
- 4K & South America$2.99
- 4K & Pacific$2.99
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- 4K & Japan/Korea/Taiwan$2.99
- 8K & North America$4.99
- 8K & Australia$4.99
- 8K & China$4.99
- 8K & Russia$4.99
- 8K & Europe$4.99
- 8K Pass$8.99
- Professional Version$14.99
Questions
Is Earth free?
Is GlobeViewer free?
Which has better reviews, Earth or GlobeViewer?
Do Earth or GlobeViewer have ads?
Which is updated more often, Earth or GlobeViewer?
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